LinkedIn Doubles Down on Lead Gen to Drive Even More ROI for Marketers
Editor's Note: This post was co-authored by Vasudha Mithal
Earlier this year, we launched LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored Content. Using pre-filled forms, this solution made it easy for advertisers to collect quality leads from over 530 million professionals, influencers, and business decision-makers on LinkedIn.
Marketers have seen strong campaign performance with Lead Gen Forms, reducing their average cost per lead by more than 20%. With such strong ROI, we decided to expand our lead gen capabilities to more LinkedIn products, including Sponsored InMail and Dynamic Ads.
Announcing Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail
Today we are excited to announce that marketers can use Lead Gen Forms on their Sponsored InMail campaigns.
Lead gen marketers use Sponsored InMail to reach members with personalized, one-to-one messages on LinkedIn. While open rates are commonly above 40%, we noticed that some prospects dropped off because of the extra step required to fill out a form on the advertiser’s landing page.
With Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail, advertisers can improve the conversion rates of their Sponsored InMail campaigns while collecting quality lead data at scale—including a prospect’s name, email address, job title, company name, and select other fields from their LinkedIn profile. In our beta tests, advertisers using Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail saw their mobile conversion rates increase by an average of 3x when compared to standard landing pages.
We are also excited to announce that you can now ask custom questions on a Lead Gen Form to collect lead data beyond the standard fields we provide. You can add up to 3 custom question fields, which can be either multiple choice questions, free-form fields, or a mix of these types. Custom questions will work for both Sponsored InMail and Sponsored Content campaigns.
“Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail have made it so much easier for our targeted audience to request information from our clients. We don’t have to disrupt their LinkedIn experience, but still reach out to them in LinkedIn messaging,” said Benjamin Sandman, partner at 5 Horizons Digital, a digital marketing agency. “It has been a game changer for our lead generation efforts.”
Introducing a new Dynamic Ads format -- Generate leads and content downloads directly within your ad
Marketers use LinkedIn Dynamic Ads to build personalized, attention-grabbing campaigns. These ads deliver 2x higher click-through rates than standard display ads because they are automatically customized to include the name, profile photo, job title, or job function of the member viewing the ad.
With our newest Dynamic Ads lead gen format, you can instantly generate leads and enable content downloads —such as the download of an ebook or whitepaper— directly from the ad unit itself.
In just a couple of clicks on your Dynamic Ads creative, members can send you their full name and email address, without ever having to type their info by hand. Once someone submits their information through the ad unit, your content will automatically start downloading to their desktop.
Just like with Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored Content or Sponsored InMail, you can access your leads directly from Campaign Manager, or leverage our partners to pass leads to your marketing automation or CRM system. We currently support DriftRock, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle Eloqua, and Zapier.
The newest Dynamic Ads lead gen format is available today through your LinkedIn account rep. Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail will be rolling out for all customers in the coming two weeks, whether you’re working with a LinkedIn rep or running your campaigns self-service in Campaign Manager. Try it today.
